Immediately upon receipt of this letter, M. de Bourmont wrote a note to M. de Coislin in the following terms:—
"As Madame has courageously resolved not to abandon the country, and is rallying round her all who wish to preserve France from the misfortunes which threaten her, make known to all that they are to hold themselves ready on Sunday, 3 June, and that they arrange throughout the following night to act together, according to the directions we have given. Make very certain your orders are conveyed to everybody and to all points.
"MARÉCHAL COMTE DE BOURMONT"
This, then, was how things were in la Vendée when the report of the death of General Lamarque ran through Paris. It followed that of Casimir Périer by only a few days: the two strong athletes were rudely strangled during their struggles in the Tribune, which seem to have killed them both. But the soldier survived the tribune by a few days. The impression produced by these two deaths was very different: nothing could be compared with the unpopularity of the one, and the popularity of the other. This death coincided with the famous affair of the compte rendu. We live so fast, and the gravest events pass over so quickly, that oblivion comes as rapidly as nightfall. Not one young man of thirty knows definitely to-day what the affair of the compte rendu was that we indicate was of so grave a nature.
After M. Laffitte gave up the seals of power, he returned to the Opposition; this was simple enough, since it was in order to bring about an easy reaction that Louis-Philippe had banished his prime minister and his old friend. M. Laffitte's Opposition was the most Conservative imaginable from the standpoint of enlightened politics. If anything could add to the duration of the reign, condemned in advance, it was the plan expounded by him to his co-religionists on the Left: this theory, of which M. Laffitte was the High Priest, and M. Odilon Barrot the Apostle, consisted in recovering possession of power by the help of a parliamentary majority, to make the infusion of political clemency triumphant, and to make the monarchy definitively—the word is Louis Blanc's—guardian over liberty; a narrow but honest dream, which, compelled to tread between reaction and insurrection, could never become a reality.
As for the Radical deputies, they were divided into two representative shades of opinion, the most advanced led by Garnier-Pagès, the other by M. Maugnin; their object was to renew a sort of league after the type of those of the Guises, with the object of leading the Bourbon monarchy unconsciously, in 1836 or 1837, to be what the Valois monarchy of 1585 or 1586 had been.
To sum up, with the exception of those who have since been called the centriers, the ventrus and the satisfaits, that is to say, that ruminant kind of being which looks in all times towards the trough of the Budget and the rack of the Civil List, everybody was dissatisfied. All the malcontents, desirous of a change, whether of system or of persons, but who only desired to reach such changes by constitutional means, gathered together during the month of May at M. Laffitte's to attempt a last supreme effort. Pure Republicans who, on the contrary, only admitted insurrectionist methods, and marched separately in their strength and liberty, sleeping on their arms, took no part whatever in this meeting, the leaders of which were MM. Laffitte, Odilon Barrot, Cormenin, Charles Comte, Mauguin, Lamarque, Garnier-Pagès and La Fayette. The last three sailed by the limits of Constitutional and Republican opposition, quite closely, not indeed so near as to belong to our camp, that of militant Republicanism, but near enough to let themselves be drawn along with it. The meeting at Laffitte's was composed of upwards of forty deputies. M. Laffitte spoke and summed up the situation with the threefold clearness of the orator, the financier and man of honour, and he suggested an address to the king. It was the old method, always repulsed, but always returning to the charge, under the name of parliamentary remonstrances in the time of absolute monarchy, and by the title of an address in the time of constitutional monarchy.
Garnier-Pagès, a just, incisive character, had but two words to say with which to fight the proposition victoriously. Could any one not mad conceive the illusion that royalty would consent to admit itself guilty, to recognise its errors and to make honourable amends to the nation? No, the monarchy and the nation were in a complete state of rupture. The nation must be appealed to concerning the errors of the monarchy. Garnier-Pagès would go so far as to term those errors treasons, and this sent a shudder down the spines of certain deputies of the Opposition. The upshot of the meeting was that the Opposition put its grievances before the nation under the form of a report. A commission was appointed, consisting of MM. La Fayette, Laffitte, Cormenin, Odilon Barrot, Charles Comte and Mauguin. MM. de Cormenin and Odilon Barrot were given the task of each drawing up the report separately; they would decide finally whether to choose either report or to destroy both reports. The work of each of the two editors bore signs of his own individual characteristics: M. de Cormenin too much recalled the bold pamphleteer who signed himself Timon le Misanthrope. M. Odilon Barrot, on the contrary, seemed too exclusively to bind up the future of France with the monarchical form of government. Neither of the two plans was adopted. It was decided to unite MM. de Cormenin and Barrot's two reports into one, or, rather, to draw up the manifesto in common, and it strongly resembled a declaration of war. Both left for Saint-Cloud in the morning and returned with the manifesto in the evening. It was in M. de Cormenin's handwriting; but it was easily seen that Odilon Barrot had had a great deal to do in the drawing up. However, whatever the share M. Barrot had in this work, the report assumed the character, if not exactly of a threat, at least of a severe and solemn warning. It appeared on 28 May 1832. One hundred and thirty-three deputies had signed it. It made a profound impression, and the death of General Lamarque, one of the principal signatories to the manifesto, threw a dark and almost mysterious shade upon the situation, such as the hand of death seems to cast over certain fatal days.